I woke up this morning to see that a huge pine tree that was right next to our house in the backyard had toppled over. Fortunately it missed our house and the garage and the power line. It did knock out our telephone line so now I have no landline phone and hence no internet access at home, since I use DSL.
The tree fell on the fence separating us from our neighbor and now lies across his driveway, blocking access to his garage. It brought down his power line but did not break it, which now passes under the tree. Although this is dangerous and no one should go near it, he still has power, which is good since he has two young children. Fortunately the tree missed his house and garage too. Normally he parks his car right at the spot where the tree fell but he had decided to put it in the garage last night. I have lent him my car to use until we get the power line taken care of and the tree cleared from his driveway.
The funny thing was that I slept through it and did not hear anything at all during the night, no high winds nor the tree crashing down, and neither did our neighbor. That is weird considering the size of the tree and the wind forces that must have been applied to bring it down. I must be a heavier sleeper than I thought.
The inconveniences we are experiencing are small. About 180,000 people are without power in the region and there have been downed trees and local flooding. All flights out of the airport have been cancelled until noon today. But our university is open and right now at work it seems like any other rainy autumn day, with not much wind to speak of. There is a possibility of a return of high winds later in the day.
The people in New York and New Jersey seem to have been the ones really hard hit by the high winds and rain and flooding and it looks like it will take them some time to get back to normal.
It seems like Obama and NJ Gov. Chris Christie have been working well together (which doesn’t surprise me since they are both ambitious but non-ideolgoical politicians), and NJ has been pretty well-prepared for the onslaught. I didn’t vote for Gov. Christie, and would vote against him again if I still lived in the state, but at least he isn’t incompetent like some politicians. Not a good thing when he is going after policies I loathe, but a real asset in the face of potential disasters.
Maryland reporting in. The coast (where I am) suffered so much less than we were expecting. We lost power for about 20 hours, but the rains where nowhere near what was predicted nor were the winds. Currently (1 pm Tuesday) we’ve got drizzle. I’ve got the news on now and I’m seeing the devastation in NJ and NY and I just feel so bad for those people.
Mano, I’m glad your storm damage wasn’t worse. Losing phone service is inconvenient, but I’m really glad you didn’t lose power.
You’re on the East Side, right? Get ready. Now the cold air is coming.
he only slowed down because Romney is getting good press for his humanitarian efforts. The dimwit is copying the presidential style of the next president of the United States of America, Romney cares about humans- the moron cares about power.